


The Light of Stars

by azhdarchidaen



Category: Yogscast "High Rollers" D&D Campaign
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, I've been given a star metaphor directly and thus must run wild, so how about that episode huh, spoilers for episode 26, t'is my brand
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-05
Updated: 2019-03-05
Packaged: 2019-11-12 11:55:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18010454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/azhdarchidaen/pseuds/azhdarchidaen
Summary: What do you do when you're on a mysterious beach, in mourning, and your team has suffered major injuries and losses?Looking up is a start





	The Light of Stars

Though she was aware of a little else around her -- the crashing of waves, mainly, and some soft, pained noises that implied at least a few of her companions remained near her -- Aila focused first primarily on the strongest and most present sensation that allowed herself to take something resembling stock of the situation.

Sand.  
  
There was sand beneath her fingers, running through them as she clenched her fist into the ground, trying to establish a grip that wasn’t there in the shifting grains of the beach. It all slipped through her fists, and she wanted to scream in frustration, not because it was much of a complication in and of itself, but because it felt like so much symbolism of the group’s current situation.

She closed her fist tighter, squeezing the sand in her palm as tightly as she could, trapping it, as if it would somehow grant her more control over the circumstances. With the tiny grains biting into her palm, the lost control was now grounding, and she felt like she could take stock of things somewhat more. Suddenly, she could hear more than just the waves and her own blood pounding in her ears. Familiar, quiet sobs somewhere nearby pierced the blur.

“Nova?” she said, pulling herself up from the ground. There was sand in her shoes, sand in her tartan, and sand all over her braids, but she did her best to shake some off as she lifted herself into a kneeling position.

The genasi also knelt, low to the ground an on all fours, nearby, but she was shaking with sobs, tears running down her face in little rivulets. She looked shaky, and liable to collapse from the weight of the emotion at any second. Tiangong lay, seemingly abandoned, at her side.

“Nova!” Aila said again, more sharply, but still didn’t garner any response.

She pulled herself fully upright, dusting her knees off somewhat haphazardly, then crouched down again next to Nova on wandering a few feet over towards her. For an awkward moment, Aila’s hand hovered in mid-air, contemplating what it should do to get the other woman’s attention. Gentle affection was not her forte. Ultimately, she went for something in-between.

“Ow!” Nova sniffled, looking up, surprised. “You… you smacked me!”

Okay, maybe not so in-between. Sometimes it was hard to judge her own strength.

“I don’t know what to do with people who are crying!” Aila admitted.

“Usually you don’t try smacking them,” Nova said. She was pulling herself into a little more of a sitting position now, to look Aila in the eye, as the wild elf put a hand on her shoulder.

“Well it worked, didn’t it? You’re crying less.”

Nova looked like she was about to say something to prove her wrong, but took a deep breath and instead tried wiping away some of her tears. Her palms were still all sandy, and it left a wet, gritty streak across her face. Despite everything, Aila almost wanted to laugh at the genasi accidentally giving herself what looked like a second dusting of freckles.

“You got a little…” she said, gesturing to her own face.

Sniffling again, though a little more quietly, Nova tried to wipe the sand away. All she succeeded in doing was getting even sandier. But something about the futility of it got the corner of her lip to quirk a little, and wobbly as it was, it seemed like progress.

“Don’t think I can’t hear you crying, too, Lucius” Aila called out, directing her attention to a slightly more distant, louder sobbing.

“Are you going to hit me, too?” he wailed back.

“Depends,” she said. “Will it help you stop?”

“Not if it hurts!”

“Well then, I won't,” Aila said. A moment later, her voice softened, or at least, hit as soft a tone as it ever did. “Although, seriously, for once I’m not blaming you _that_ much for crying. That was kind of a lot.”

“You’re not crying,” Nova said, still trying to wipe her runny nose.

“That’s because I don’t cry,” Aila said. “Though if I were ever going to start, you know, it might be the time for it.”

She surveyed her two emotional companions, both trying their hardest to get a ahold of themselves. Nova was having slightly more success. The fact that Lucius didn’t even seem to note that he was getting sand all over his colorful robes was probably concerning, but for the time being, Aila considered it a sort-of blessing -- it meant she didn’t have to hear him complain.

Her next instinct was to do a headcount, to make sure the five -- and then she swallowed, because no, it was four, wasn’t it? -- of them were okay. Obviously she had found Nova and Lucius, and she herself was as fine as she could be given the circumstances, but the last she’d seen of Quill, he hadn’t been doing so well. The fact that she hadn’t heard so much as a peep from the aarakocra was somewhat concerning.

“Quill?” she called out, standing up again and dusting off her tartan. “You there?”

There wasn’t a response.

“If you’re alive, wheeze at me!” she shouted, towards the beach.

There was a rustling was some sand and a pained noise, and she realized that what she thought might have been a lump of seaweed a bit in the distance was ruffling slightly, and awfully feathery.

“Sit tight, you two,” she ordered Nova and Lucius sternly. Her tearful companions both nodded, the latter with rivulets of water still streaming down his face. Nova had grabbed Tiangong and seemed to be hugging them tightly, as a sort of comfort object. Neither seemed likely to try to go anywhere in the first place.

Dashing over to Quill, Aila again knelt into the sand, trying to clear away some of the grainy mess that had gotten all mixed up in his feathers. She knew the aarakocra liked to take dust baths, but she figured even he probably wouldn't be happy the situation -- though honestly, he was probably pained enough that such a minor annoyance as some sand was pretty low on the list of things to worry about.

“You alive, then, Birdbrain?” she said, more worry creeping into her voice than she wanted.

There was another pained, deep breath as Quill tried to turn on his side and instantly seemed to regret it. The action gave Aila a clear view of his one good eye, which was clouded with pain.

“Sentry…” he gasped, more of a breath than a word.

“No, none of that, tell me about you,” Aila said. “Unless you're about to join her, okay? Where are you hurt? How bad is it? Be practical with me or I’ll punt you to one of the sky cities myself.”

Quill blinked, seemingly unprepared for her blunt brand of concern.

“It’s… it’s my ribcage,” he said. “That whole sort of area. I haven’t really taken stock of it, what with the... everything, but it feels a bit like the whole thing just shattered.”

As if on cue, Quill’s whole chest began to spasm, it looked a bit like an attempt at a cough, but Aila supposed maybe birds didn’t go in for that -- she’d never seen a bird cough before, at least. Regardless, for a brief moment, he seemed like he was choking.

“Nova!” Aila called behind her, again, not panicked, because _she_ didn’t panic, but you know, it might have sounded a little like that if you didn’t know her. Or something. You know. “You’ve read stuff about medicine, right? In your books and stuff? You got enough of your tears out to try to help out here?”

The genasi slowly lifted herself up, reluctant to stop hugging Tiangong, and shuffled over, looking as if she was trying to hurry herself but didn’t quite have it in her. She knelt next to Aila to have a look at Quill, who was still in the midst of his choking fit, gasping for air.

“He looks like he needs CPR,” she sniffled, moving a hand over his chest.

“Opposite of that, opposite of that!” Quill choked out through his short breaths. “Please don’t touch my chest, Nova!”

“Then what do I do?” she asked, panicked. Aila somewhat regretted calling her over.

Fortunately, however, the spasm finally passed, though a small spattering of what looked like blood came up an spattered Quill’s feathers as he experienced a final, painful heave.

“Noted,” Aila said dryly.

She didn’t mean to be quite so dismissive, but there wasn’t much you could do for badly broken ribs beyond not move, and under the circumstances, that probably wasn’t much of an option. And she’d offer to carry Quill around if it weren’t for the fact that she’d likely need to do that for…. Well….

Glancing back at the beach to try to catch a glimpse of the fallen guardian, who she presumed had still traveled here with them, Aila could see Lucius, still separate from the rest of the group crying with renewed vigor. Next to him was some sort of bright spark, and she swallowed deeply when she noted what -- or rather who -- he was crying over.

“Lucius…” she called out to him. “Care to join the rest of us?”

There was a loud wail.

“I’ll bring Sentry over too,” she said, swallowing again. “We should probably set up camp.”

“Can’t we fix her?” he said, still sobbing.

Aila got up again, starting to begrudge the others her back-and-forth shuffle. She almost mentally corrected herself for it though -- while Nova and Lucius’ emotional states were perhaps hard to deal with, Quill could hardly move, and Sentry of course.... well.

Sentry wasn’t going to be moving at all.

“I don’t think any of us know enough about guardians,” she said quietly as she wandered over. “But we can get her somewhere safe, and maybe there’ll be someone who does.”

“I was going to try to trade my soul to fix her, you know,” Lucius said, looking up at her and wiping his eyes. “That would have worked. Maybe I should have done that.”

“Congratulations!” Aila said, “You’ve got me back to remembering you’re an idiot!”

Lucius was still crying, but the flow of tears seemed to slow. He looked a bit stunned.

“You think losing your soul is a better idea? You think any of us should give up our souls?” Aila said. “You think _Sentry_ would like that?”

“Well, it did seem like the best option,” Lucius said.

“You know what you do when all your options are bad options?” Aila said. “You make new ones. I don’t care what happened back there now. I care what we’re gonng do next. So pick up that shiny thing Starbane gave us, and I’ll pick up Sentry, and we’re gonna work from there. First things first, we’re exposed, and tired, and Quill’s hurt, so let’s find some shelter, huh?”

Lucius looked even more stunned at being ordered around, but it also seemed to work. He edged towards grabbing the light.

“Nova?” Aila said, turning back to the genasi a bit behind her. “You think you can help Quill walk? Actually scratch that, Quill, you think you can even try to walk?”

“I… I can make an attempt,” he said. The words themselves sounded pained.

“I don’t like the sound of that,” Aila said. “But give it a go and if I’ve got to ferry all of you to a place with some cover, by Siaska I’ll do it.”

There was no response, aside from some blinking.

“Well?” Aila asked expectantly.

“Where should we--” Nova started.

“Why don’t we head towards those scrubby little trees at the base of that dune, to start?” Aila said, pointing to a spot that seemed a bit more sheltered than the open beach.

Sure enough, both Lucius and Nova started to pull themselves up. The former was still in the midst of sobbing fairly heavily, but he scooped up the bright light he’d been directed to, hugging it to his chest in a way that was probably more metaphorical than Aila cared to contemplate.

Reaching out her arms, Nova started trying her best to help Quill up. The aarakocra struggled to even stand, clearly pained and taking in shallow, difficult breaths. She offered him Tiangong as a sort of cane and that seemed to help, then wrapped her arm under the bird’s single wing and shoulder to try to guide him. He closed his eye in pain and seemed to be gritting his beak against it, but they made slow progress together nonetheless, Nova ruffling his feathers in a soothing, massaging gesture as they moved.

Taking a difficult breath herself, thanks to the hitch in her throat as she tried, Aila turned her attention towards their last party member. Seeing Sentry so still was different than the other kinds of death the wild elf was familiar with -- she wasn’t a stranger to blood, or injuries, or distant eyes that gazed into whatever afterlife mortals went to when they died. The guardian, however, had none of that -- only still limbs, and a lack of light. It was kind of worse, really, seeing her looking dark and still instead of smeared with familiar gore, or something. That made people really look dead. Instead, she just looked like a fake Sentry, a statute someone had made that didn’t have any of her light or life. That didn’t protect others, or like warm plates.

It seemed less real than watching someone flesh and blood go down. Aila would know -- she’d seen both that and Sentry’s death herself.

Gently, she slipped her arms underneath the fallen guardian. For a moment, she contemplated throwing her in an over-the-shoulder carry -- she might be shut down, but she was still heavy, and far larger than the rest of the group. But it felt wrong, tossing her around like a sack or something, and instead despite her size, Aila did her best to cradle Sentry, grateful yet again for her own strength.

The others had congregated over by the scrubby trees, a trail of footsteps in the sand telling the story of their journey -- there were Lucius’ slow, delicate footsteps in a fairly neat trail that ended in him sitting on a log, still hugging the glowing thing they’d gotten from Starbane. A heavier trail showed Quill’s talons mixed with Nova’s bootprints as they moved almost as one, injured creature, a line in the sand from dragging Tiangong along for support and lots of starts and stops. They were seated as well, in the sand, with Nova still trying to gently work her hands through Quill’s feathers in a soothing gesture as he had another choking attack.

Aila tried not to get worried about his health again.

“You’ve punctured something inside,” she said bluntly, sitting down next to him.

She lay Sentry down in the sand next to them, crossing the guardian’s arms respectfully over her figure, so she looked slightly less like a broken rag doll.

“You don’t sa-- I mean, I’ve noticed,” Quill said.

“Gotta rest, then,” she said. “Take it easy.”

“I...I don’t know that we have time for that,” he said.

“We’ve got time to make sure there are five of us again,” Aila said.

She started gathering up some of the sticks in the area, hoping that if they were going to make camp for the night she could at least set them up a camp for the night. She didn’t know how cold it was going to get here, but the last thing they could afford was someone getting pneumonia or something. Especially Quill, with his already-compromised health, and who was probably at risk.

“You mean four,” Nova sniffled. She pointedly didn’t look at Sentry.

“I mean _five,”_ Aila said pointedly.

For the first time really since she’d noticed him, Lucius appeared to stop crying, even a little bit.

“Do you -- You really think that we can fix her up?” he said.

“I think we got something, whatever it is, from Callus _fucking_ Starbane that’s apparently for that purpose, so I figure we’ve got as good a chance as any,” Aila said. She pulled out some flint from a pouch at her side and lit the kindling with a spark.

“It’s a star bit,” Nova said quietly.

Aila looked at her oddly. Quill was obviously hurt, but maybe Nova was concussed or something, too? That’d be bad.

“Star _bane_ ,” she corrected. “You know, the guy that gets mentioned all the time? That we _met_. That's apparently Valla's  _father_?”

“No, no,” Nova said, shaking her head. She stopped stroking Quill for a moment to gesture with both hands, which Aila took as a good sign -- that was a bit more normal Nova. “The thing he gave us, it’s a bit of a star. It’s got to have enough power to help her. We just don’t have anyone here who knows how to use it quite right.”

“It’s a piece of a _star_?” she asked incredulously, and Nova nodded.

It was an almost wordless thing, a shared impulse, or maybe even something more, but the four adventurers gathered around the slowly-building fire all looked upwards, where the sky was littered with more, intact examples of the object of discussion. They littered the sky, scattered points of light in the dark expanse.

“You know,” Quill said, eventually, though he then had to catch his breath as it got violently stuck again. Nova patted him carefully on the back until he could continue.

“Stars… stars are a pretty key part of navigation,” he said finally.

“You mean you can follow them,” Lucius asked, sounding confused. “Do they tell you things?”

“Sort of,” Quill said thoughtfully. “You can use them to figure out your location, and plot the way you’re headed -- they’re a landmark that doesn’t go away, unlike rocks or things you pass and that end up being more fleeting.”

“Triangulation,” Nova added.

“I don’t know about that word,” Aila said herself, “But Quill’s got a point. They tell you stuff, the stars, about where you are and how to get where you’re going next. We use them for that out in the Lowlands all the time -- wilderness knowledge, sort of.”

“I’ve navigated by the stars a lot,” Quill admitted. “They’re the only reason I have a bit of an idea where we are right now.”

“Are they telling you things, Birdie?” Lucius asked. “What do they say?”

Quill looked thoughtfully up at the stars above them, then at the bright spark of one lying near Sentry, that might yet hold life for her if they could find help in time. He opened his beak as if to speak, then seemed to hesitate.

“Quill?” Nova asked.

“I think they’re saying there are still places to go,” he said. “From here, I mean.”

“Course there are,” Aila said gruffly.

The whole group was silent, contemplating the idea. It as growing darker, and the stars more visible and the fire in front of them more warming. The quiet was eventually pierced by Quill experiencing another one of hit fits of difficulty breathing, this one particularly violent. Nova wrapped an arm around him to keep him from keeling over.

“Why don’t you lie down, Quill?” she said, gently. The worry in her voice was undeniable, but neither was the fact that it carried with it an equal element of kindness.

“We all could,” Lucius said, and the other looked at him oddly. Aila wondered what he was getting at.

“To look at the stars,” he added hastily. “It gives you a better view of the sky. And then you can look up and draw pictures, between all the little dots.”

Nova, who herself was gently aiding Quill into a lying position on his back so as not to aggravate his ribs further, and Aila looked at each other. Aila shrugged. She wasn’t totally sure what Lucius was going on about, but everyone was tired. Maybe it was the kind of thing they needed.

“The heck not,” she said, shrugging. “Let’s do it.”

“I can recognize some of these constellations,” Nova added, lying back against a log herself. “They’re not all familiar, but I suppose we’re rather far from home.”

“They’re still stars,” Aila said. “That’s something, right?”

“Spots of light…” Quill mumbled.

“Oh, don’t you go getting all metaphorical on us,” Aila said. “I was being literal. Or do you want me to smack you to keep your head on your shoulders?”

“You wouldn’t hit and injured bird!” he protested, though the air of jest was clear.

“I’d hit a lot of things, “ Aila said. 

“She threatened to hit me, earlier,” Lucius added, unhelpfully.

“I think lots of people would hit you, Lucius,” Nova said, sounding almost like she was trying to break the news gently.

The group fell into silence once more, hearing mostly the crackle of the fire at their side as they lay looking up at the sky.

“....Do you think Sentry would have something to say about the stars?” Nova asked eventually. “I wonder if they’re different, now, than when she was built.”

“Well let’s to our best to get to ask her,” Aila said. “We’ve got one just for her, don't we?”

“That’s quite a poetic gift,” Nova said. “A star.”

“I can’t do it,” Aila said, throwing her hands up in the air. “I can’t stop you all from making metaphors.”

“Maybe you can’t quell it because hope’s just a bit like that,” Quill said. “It just… pops up.”

“That’s the most optimistic I’ve heard you be, like, ever,” Aila said. “And it’s when you’ve got a crushed ribcage. Are you feeling alright? Like, feverish?”

“Might be…. Might be delirium,” Quill said.

“Well hang onto it,” AIila said. “I’m not letting any of you give up.”

“Sounds like something Sentry would say,” Lucius said.

“Yeah, well, maybe she rubbed off on me a little,” Aila said.

There was something like a tear trying to escape her eye. But that was ridiculous. Aila didn’t cry.

“We’ll look at the stars for her, then,” Nova said, pointing up at the glowing skyscape above them. “That one up there is particularly bright.”

“Yeah,” Aila said quietly. “We’ll do that. We’ll look at the stars.”

And they did.

**Author's Note:**

> "And thou, too, whosoe'er thou art,  
> That readest this brief psalm,  
> As one by one thy hopes depart,  
> Be resolute and calm. 
> 
> O fear not in a world like this,  
> And thou shalt know erelong,  
> Know how sublime a thing it is  
> To suffer and be strong."
> 
> (Selection taken from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's "The Light of Stars")


End file.
